The central gesture
This book — one of the most useful ever written on Sufism — answers a simple question: what, exactly, does Sufism teach? Not "what does a Sufi feel," nor "how does a brotherhood behave," but: what is the doctrine, the vision of the real, that upholds the whole way.
Burckhardt warns at the outset: purely academic knowledge is here only a secondary aid. Sufism is a knowledge, but of an order that surpasses discursive thought. The book does not "describe" Sufism from outside: it sets out its intellectual perspective from within, as one unfolds a truth.
The key concepts (made plain)
- At-Tasawwuf — The word "Sufism" itself. Burckhardt situates it: the tasawwuf is the heart of Islam, its inner dimension — not a sect, not a margin, but the kernel of the almond.
- Sufism and mysticism — A decisive clarification. Sufism is not a "mysticism" in the sentimental sense — an effusion of religious feeling. It is intellective in nature: it aims at knowledge, maʿrifa, not emotion.
- Unity — and not pantheism — The Sufi doctrine of the Unity of Being (waḥdat al-wujūd) is often confused with pantheism ("all is God"). Burckhardt rectifies: God is not the sum of the world; the world is the manifestation of God, who contains it without being contained by it.
- Knowledge and love — The two great ways. Spiritual love is, as it were, intermediate between ardent devotion and pure knowledge; but in Islam, says Burckhardt, it is always knowledge that holds primacy.
- The renewal of creation at each instant — Creation is not a past event. At every instant, God projects the world anew. Nothing endures of itself: all is given back, ceaselessly.
- Universal Man — The doctrine of the Insān al-Kāmil, inherited from Ibn ʿArabī and al-Jīlī: the accomplished human being as the total mirror in which God contemplates Himself.
- Doctrine, virtue, spiritual alchemy — The three aspects of the way. Doctrine enlightens; virtue transforms the character; "spiritual alchemy" works the inner transmutation. None goes without the others.
The architecture of the work
Eighteen short chapters, distributed in three parts that descend from pure doctrine towards practice:
- Part one — what tasawwuf is, Sufism and mysticism, Unity, knowledge and love, the Sufi interpretation of the Quran
- Part two — creation, the archetypes, the renewal at each instant, the Spirit, Universal Man, union according to Ibn ʿArabī
- Part three — the three aspects of the way, the intellectual faculties, rites, meditation, contemplation
To read it
It is, in a few pages, one of the best doorways into doctrinal Sufism. The chapters are short, dense, without padding. The book requires attention, but presumes no prior erudition. To be read before approaching Ibn ʿArabī or al-Jīlī: it gives their vocabulary and their perspective.
Resonances
- Universal Man — see al-Jīlī and the theme of the Perfect Man
- The doctrine of Unity — see Ibn ʿArabī
- The other side of Burckhardt: Sacred Art in East and West
- The site's Metaphysics